


Lavender and Lilies

by foreverinfiction



Series: Lavender and Lilies Stories [2]
Category: The Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:21:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23623048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foreverinfiction/pseuds/foreverinfiction
Summary: Jem and Tessa smut ;)
Relationships: Jem Carstairs/Tessa Gray, Jem Carstairs/Tessa Gray/Will Herondale, Jem Carstairs/Will Herondale
Series: Lavender and Lilies Stories [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1985132
Comments: 4
Kudos: 73





	Lavender and Lilies

Tess lay sprawled out on a blanket in the early morning sun. Jem could see her from the kitchen window. He stood there for a while, watching his new wife reading something or other. The house was old, but it was newly theirs, and that was enough for him. Tessa had surprised him by offering to move out of her little apartment in London and move into a house in the countryside. He remembered the conversation clearly. She had ordered Thai food in, claiming that he needed to try new things. The question of moving had surprised him. They both loved the city, both had teased Will about loving the country. 

“I don’t want to share you with other people,” she said when he pressed her. “I just want some time to not share you.”

She had given him a small, sad smile then and he had understood. Even though the city had grown, and her apartment was over a mile from the London Institute, the weight of her memories there was too much. He had noticed it a little, when they had gone out for dinner the night before, how she pointed out places that were important. “Here is where Lucie fell and broke her ankle,” she said as they passed Hyde park. “This is where Will took me courting after Cadair Idris,” she said as they passed a cafe. He knew the memories could be overwhelming. He had felt them himself. 

“Where were you thinking?” he had asked her.

That was a month ago. Now, they had an overwhelmingly large house in France, their neighbors miles away, and lavender growing everywhere. It was a beautiful domestic nightmare, Jem recalled. Picking out paints and wallpapers, deciding whether or not they wanted tile or wood floors, teasing each other over the number of bedrooms and bathrooms they needed. Tessa had apartments scattered around the world, and he had the Carstairs family home passed to him, but neither of them had purchased an actual house before. The paperwork and the tours surprised him. He loved the house they chose, but he half believed that they had chosen it simply because they were tired of looking. He had loved picking out the smaller decorations with Tessa. The wallpaper and sofas they had left to a designer friend of Tessa’s, but their bedroom they had done themselves. Jem loved wandering through the markets and stores to find what they liked. Laying on a bed in a mattress store, Jem had asked her what kind of bedframe she wanted. It was a perfectly innocent question, he had thought. He had meant it to be casual, something focused on sleep and not other things they did in their bedroom. 

“Something with posts,” Tessa had answered casually. “I think I may want to try handcuffs, and Magnus said bedposts make a difference.”

Startled, Jem had sat up and looked at her. She laughed and smiled at him before she followed him up. “Do not give me that look, James. We are in a public space and I am not taking my dress off for you.”

“You’re the one talking about handcuffs as if we are simply deciding what restaurant we’re going to for dinner.” Jem quipped back. “Let’s go home,” he insisted. 

Tessa laughed at him. “We don’t have a mattress to do the things that are in your head. Let’s finish picking out the stuff for our bedroom, get some food because I am starving, and then we can try handcuffs later.”

Jem pouted and she laughed. “I love you,” she said. And he loved her for that, saying she loved him with a smile on her lips, her hair falling around her face, her dress twisted just a bit too tight around her body. 

“I love you,” he answered her, reaching for her hand and pulling her up. “I don’t care about the mattress. Just pick one so we can go home.”

Tessa laughed again. “You spend a third of your life sleeping. You care about the mattress.”

Pulling her in close, he kissed her head. “I trust you. You pick whichever one you like. I’m sure I can manage with whatever you choose.”

She had gone up to the salesperson and started speaking in French that Jem couldn’t understand. He just held her hand as she talked to the woman. When they left the store, receipt in hand and a delivery date set, Jem asked her which one she had picked. 

“The most expensive one,” she had teased. Then smiled and nudged him. “The same brand as the one in our London apartment, just a bigger size.”

Laughing, Jem nudged her back. “Why bigger?”

“You steal the covers,” she answered immediately. He opened his mouth to apologize, but she stopped him. “I don’t mind,” she said. “You’re adorable when you wrap yourself into a human burrito at night. I just might want my own blanket.” 

“I do not do that,” he protested. 

She grinned. “Oh, you do,” she persisted. “In the middle of the night, you somehow wrap yourself up so that only your nose sticks out of the covers. Then, sometime around three in the morning, you unwrap yourself so that none of the covers are on the bed, and they all are on the floor.”

“I think you’re lying,” he pressed. “There is no way I do all of that in the night. If I did, you would have smothered me.”

She leaned up on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek. “We could set up a camera and I could show you.” 

Jem shook his head. “No,” Jem said. “I don’t want a camera in our bedroom. You made me watch that terrifying movie about the couple who set up a camera and were attacked by a demon. We are not putting a camera in our house.”

“I agree. No cameras,” she said with a laugh, and then she changed the subject. “Where do you want to eat tonight? I don’t want to cook.”

Smiling at the memory, Jem poured two cups of coffee and went outside to sit with his wife. His wife. He loved calling Tessa his wife. He had no illusions of being in control of her or owning her or any other terribly traditional view of marriage. But he loved saying that he was hers. He loved holding her hand while the sipped coffee on the patio of a cafe or when Tessa took him on a wine tasting with Magnus and Alec. He loved showing off that she had chosen him, as if he could tell the world: “Look at her. She’s beautiful and kind and brave, and she chose me. Can you believe it? She chose me.” 

He hadn’t realized how much weight calling Tessa his wife had carried until Alec had told him of his worries. During the wine tasting, they had toured the vineyard, and Tessa had looped her arm through Magnus’ and pulled him away. Jem didn’t mind. He didn’t care so much about wine, but Magnus and Tessa did, so while they went on and talked about tannins and whether or not rosé counted as wine, Jem had slowed to talk with Alec. 

“Does it make a difference?” Alec had asked him quietly. “To be married?”

Jem had glanced at him as they walked. “It feels different,” he answered honestly. “I would love Tessa regardless of if we were married or not, but it feels— I don’t know. More permanent, maybe?”

Alec had nodded but hadn’t said anything else. Jem let him have his silence and thought more about what it meant to be married. 

As Jem sat down next to Tessa, she smiled up at him. “Good morning,” she said, accepting the coffee he offered. 

“Good morning,” he said, leaning over to kiss her quickly. “You’re up early.”

She gave him a small smile. “Weird dream last night. I got up to read for a bit.”

“What was your dream about?” he asked as he took a sip of his coffee. 

She looked at him, as if she was reading him. It was a look he was beginning to recognize. It meant that she had dreamt about Will, in ways that she wasn’t sure he would want to hear about. He loved her for that, that she let him make the decision on how much he wanted to know about her life with Will. He nodded at her and took another sip of coffee. 

“It was about our wedding night,” she said, and again, she waited, watching his reaction. 

He tried to keep his expression as open as possible. “What about your wedding night?” he prompted gently. He didn’t often refuse to hear about her intimate memories with Will. He knew Tessa loved him with all of her heart, and perhaps it was that he wanted as much time with Will as possible, even if it was only through her memories. Maybe it was that he wanted to know how she was feeling. What had driven her out of bed so early in the morning? Either way, he leaned in to press a kiss to her cheek. “I want to hear,” he said. 

Jem could see the decision cross her face. “When we were together in Cadair Idris,” she started, looking out towards the trees in the distance. “We were so hurried, so afraid of dying, so wrapped up in our grief for you that I didn’t pay attention to the details of things. And it— I mean, the sex was fine,” she said and looked back at him. He smiled softly at her. He wanted to know what she was thinking. She sighed and continued. “We were so young and so inexperienced, that I’m surprised we got all of our parts in the right places. I didn’t have a reference for what sex was supposed to be, and the emotions I loved. The connection with Will was there, but it—” she sighed again. “I don’t know.”

“It got better,” Jem said. 

She grinned and blushed. “It did,” she said. “We did. We got better. We went from fine to mind-blowing very fast. Our wedding night was better than Cadair Idris. I got to pay attention to the details, and I can still remember them. Will had this stain on his jacket from where he had spilled some of the soup from the dinner on it. You couldn’t really tell. His jacket was this dark blue, but when we got upstairs and he was standing by the window, I could see the subtle change in the color. I can still see his smile, can still feel his hands on my hips as he pulled me to bed,” she paused again. She looked back out at the lavender growing at the edge of their garden. She took a sip of her coffee and Jem didn’t rush her. He simply took hold of her hand. She needed to work her way through the memory. He wasn’t even sure she was really talking to him, but rather just saying the words out loud. It was okay, he thought. Not everything needed to be a conversation between them. He could sit and listen to her voice forever. 

“I remember that someone had decorated our room for us for that night. It may have been Sophie. I can’t remember who it was exactly, but they had placed a vase of lilies on the side table. I remember smelling them. I can’t remember the color of them or what kind of vase they were in. I think I only glanced at them, and I was looking at Will, but I remember the smell so vividly.” 

Jem ran his thumb over the back of her hand and let her work through what she wanted to say next. 

“I relived that memory last night. I could feel everything again, but the smell was overwhelming,” she said and glanced at him. He gave her a small smile. 

“I don’t mind,” he answered gently. 

She held his hand tighter. “I missed him,” she said and hesitated. “I love you,” she started. “I love you, and I love the sex we have, and I shouldn’t be dreaming of Will and missing him like that.”

Jem leaned in to kiss her softly. It wasn’t much more than a press of his lips to hers, but the intimacy was there. He reached up to place his hand on her cheek, brushing away her tears with his thumb as he kissed her. A cloud moved over the sun, and he could feel her shiver as the shadow fell over them. He pulled away and looked at her. She kept her eyes closed and took a shaky breath. 

“Tess,” he said gently. Taking another breath, she opened her eyes. “I love you,” he said. “Forever and always, I will love you. You don’t have to give up your memories of Will for me.”

She smiled at him, a small, sad smile, and then she kissed him again softly. Jem pulled her down so that they were lying side by side and looking up at the clouds. He held onto her hand, lacing their fingers together. 

“When we were fourteen,” he started, “Gabriel had taunted Will that he hadn’t ever been with a girl. That he was ignorant and that he would be a terrible kisser.”

Tessa squeezed his hand gently. “Will told me the story,” she said. “He kissed you so he could prove Gabriel wrong if he ever had to.”

Jem sighed. “I think that is why I made it so long,” he said quietly. “We never talked about it in so much detail, but I— I don’t know.” It was too much information, he thought. Tessa loved Will, and she loved Jem, but Jem loving Will as more than a  _ parabatai _ was off-limits.

“He loved you,” she said. “He didn’t think you shared his feelings.”

“It was a good kiss,” Jem answered. 

Tessa turned her head to smile at him. The sun was parting through the clouds, shining down on her skin. She was so beautiful, Jem thought. In this light, he could see the light grey of her eyes, the golden highlights in her hair, hidden until the sun brought them out. He wanted to remember her like this. The remnants of tears and memories, the hope of the sun on her skin and the smile on her lips, the smell of lavender in the air. He focused on the smell of the lavender surrounding them. It came in like the tide on a breeze, ruffling their hair and cooling their skin. 

Tessa moved to straddle his hips, sitting up above him. The sun formed a halo around her, and Jem placed his hands on her waist. “Will was an excellent kisser,” she said. “I’m very disappointed you didn’t get to kiss him more.”

Jem reached for her, pulling her down so her hair cascaded around them and hid them from the sunlight. It made him braver for what he was going to say. He took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of Tessa and coffee and lavender. Her lips hovered above his, so close he could feel her half-smile. “I want you to ask for it,” she said quietly.

“Kiss me like he would have,” Jem said. It felt scandalous. It was scandalous. Asking his wife to kiss him like his  _ parabatai _ had kissed her was the height of impropriety. He found he didn’t care. Or at least didn’t care enough to not ask for it. They both loved Will so much, his memory hung heavy in the air around them. Jem took another breath, and he could swear that he could smell lilies too. 

She indulged him, pressing her lips to his. She pressed his hands down into the ground, their fingers laced together. The kiss started far slower than he would have ever imagined Will had the patience for. Tessa’s mouth was soft on his, her lips tasting of coffee. He pressed up to her, craving more of her. She pulled just out of reach, smiling. “Be patient,” she said.

“Will wasn’t good at being patient,” Jem whined. “Come here and let me kiss you.”

Tessa laughed. “We’ll get there,” she said. “Will liked to start slow. You do the same thing. It’s maddening.”

“Fine,” he huffed, but he smiled. 

She leaned back down to kiss him carefully again. Then slowly, oh so very slowly, she pressed his mouth open. It was a kind of luxury, Jem thought, kissing her like this. As a teenager, he hadn’t cared about luxuries. Things had functions and he didn’t spend the time worrying over the indulgence of touching them. Then he had been a Silent Brother and hadn’t been able to enjoy his sensations. Now, that he was older, that he was himself, he found he loved spending time savoring things. Kissing Tessa was a luxury, like running his hand over velvet or the smell of baking croissants that had taken two days to prepare. 

He let himself linger over the details. His hands were still pinned by hers, but he could feel the cool earth beneath them, could feel her soft skin against his fingers and palms. Her hair tickled him where it brushed his face. His shirt had slipped up so the sides of his stomach were bare, and he could feel her jeans where they brushed up against that sliver of skin. The weight of her balanced on his body. The faint sound of birds waking up. The details, the ability to slow down and appreciate them as he noticed them, made the kiss luxurious. He was utterly and completely lost in the moment. 

Tessa drew his attention back to the kiss. Her teeth pulled at his bottom lip, careful but definitely not gentle. He gasped, his eyes opening. Tessa laughed at him. “That was always his favorite,” she said. “He loved pulling sounds out of me.”

Jem smiled and kissed her again, just a small press of their lips together. “Tell me something else about him that I don’t know.” He was starving for more. More information of Will, more of his skin pressed against her, more of this feeling of time and luxury.

Tessa paused and thought about it. She shifted her hips against his, making him gasp again. He was growing hard, and she knew it. She smirked. “He liked it when I was on top. He liked it when I did all of the work.”

Jem kissed her and they got lost in the kiss again. Everything was so unbearably slow and intimate. Jem pulled away for a moment. “What did you like?”

“I liked to feel the weight of him on top of me,” she said automatically. “I liked it when he went slow and deep.”

Jem pulled on her knee, smoothly turning them so that he could press her down, her back against the blanket, her hair spread like a halo around her. “Did you ever disagree about sex?” he asked her. 

Lacing her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, she sighed. “Not really. We took turns of who was on top. It balanced out.” She kept her eyes closed as she answered him. They had done this enough that she didn’t need to see him to find the places on his body that she wanted to touch. She leaned in to kiss his neck. “He didn’t like to leave hickeys as much as you do,” she murmured, with her lips pressed to his skin. Then she sucked on the spot where she had just kissed him, a little pinch of teeth, just enough suction that Jem knew it would leave a bruise. Jem pushed his hips against hers again, and she responded by wrapping her legs around his waist. 

He leaned forward with his hips again. There were too many layers of clothes in the way but he liked how her body responded to his. “We’re outside,” he murmured, as she left a second mark on the other side of his throat. 

“Do you care?” she asked, arching her body up to his that told him she very much did not care about being outside. “Our closest neighbors are three miles away. There are lots of trees between us and them.”

Jem turned her face back to him so that he could kiss her properly. He didn’t mind, he thought. He pressed her mouth open, gently using his tongue. It was like a dance, he thought. He had never been very good at dancing, but he could understand why people used metaphors of dancing to describe lovers. It was slow and intimate. One would take a turn leading while the other followed, not submissive or absent, but equally as involved. It was wonderful, he thought. Being able to kiss Tessa like this. He may have been terrible at dancing, but Tessa loved to dance. So did Will, Jem thought. They were both so graceful. He could imagine how their sex together had progressed so quickly. The image of them together burned through him, igniting a fire in him that he didn’t know was there.

“Promise to teach me how to waltz,” Jem said. His mind was lost on that thought.

Tessa raised an eyebrow at him. “Okay?” She was confused. He didn’t want to stop to explain. Instead, he ran his hands up and under her shirt, pulling it up over her head. It was still early in the morning. She hadn’t put on a bra. He took advantage of that. 

He kissed her lips once more before he trailed his way down her neck. He stopped for a moment and worried at the place just above her collarbone that he knew would make her moan. Leaving a dark purple bruise, he moved down to her chest. He reached one hand up to cup her breast, rolling her nipple between his finger and his thumb. He squeezed his palm around her breast, just hard enough to make her gasp for him. Her eyes were closed, but she arched up into the contact. 

He left a row of kisses, leading down to the kiss the top of her breast. He smiled up at her before he took her breast into his mouth. He lapped and sucked and kissed until he got her moaning. Then he moved to the other and did the same thing. He left her panting and pulling his shirt off of his head. It was a simple, plain gray t-shirt, but somehow they managed to get it stuck on his head. Laughing, he sat up and pulled it off himself. He moved to lay back down over her, but she put a hand on his chest, pushing him back up. 

“These,” she said, running her fingertips over his abdomen. “These are my favorite muscles.”

He blushed, and she sat up to kiss him. The kiss was slow, but it was deep and left Jem wanting more. “On your back,” she said when he pulled away for a breath. Tessa covered his mouth with her hand when he started to protest. “Oh, no,” she said while a smile, pushing him onto his back. “This is about you and experiencing what Will would have done. You and I have done it plenty of times with you on top.”

Jem laid back, forcing his body to relax. She smiled at him, and she was so incredibly beautiful. “Take off your pants,” he said. Grinning, she did as he asked. Then he surprised her by pulling her up over his face. “Is this okay?” 

She nodded, a blush spreading over her cheeks. It took some readjusting before they found what worked. Her knees needed to be wide, and she wadded up her shirt to place behind his head. Then he took his time kissing up her thigh. This he was good at, he thought. He used his tongue to run up the length of her, keeping his hands on the backs of her thighs, holding her where he wanted her. Then he lapped slowly at her clit, sucking softly. He alternated long and slow with quick bursts of intense pressure that made her arch her back. 

He waited for her to moan before he added his hands. He pressed one finger up into her, making sure she was ready for him. He lost himself in the taste of her, in the sound of her gasps and moans. It was a privilege, he thought, to see Tessa Gray like this, her walls down, her chest flushed. He thanked the universe for bringing her back to him, and then he coaxed her over the edge into an orgasm that left her legs shaking. 

She leaned back once it was over, moving back to straddle his hips again. He smiled up at her and pulled her down for a kiss. She gasped through it, her skin flushed and warm and wet. “You’ve gotten good at that,” she said, resting her forehead against his. 

Before he could reply, she was sitting up again, pulling at the button on his pants. And then he was naked in the French countryside with his wife teasing him in a way that he knew he wouldn’t last long. 

“Show me what you would have done with Will,” Jem said. 

She smiled at him, and she reached to line his cock up with her body. The sensation of her body sinking onto him knocked his head back. “Tess,” he groaned and opened his eyes to look at her. He put his hands on her hips, not to control her, but just because he felt like he needed to hold onto something. She rose up on her knees and sank back down onto him. She kept it slow and teasing. She had an orgasm and he was on the edge, and he wanted so badly to take back control, to turn her over and go fast and deep. 

“Be patient,” she teased him. 

Jem groaned. “Patience is hard right now.”

That got a laugh out of her. “I can tell,” she said. She slid back down onto him and he lifted his hips up to meet her. He was impossibly deep in her and she gasped. “Fuck,” she groaned, and then she smirked at him. “This is supposed to be slow,” she said. “Don’t ruin this.”

Jem laughed. “You’re just as needy as I am.” He rolled his hips up into her again to prove his point. She slid off of him to prove hers.

“Slow or nothing at all,” she said decisively. 

Jem was halfway to an orgasm, the intimacy of being with Tessa and the memory of Will was making his head spin. “Please?” he begged. 

She sighed. “You’re incorrigible. I’ll go faster, but you keep your hips still. I don’t need your cock going into places it shouldn’t be.”

Jem laughed. “I wasn’t that deep,” he said. 

“Yes, it was” she protested with a smile. She leaned down to kiss him quickly. “I could feel you in my stomach. Stay still.”

Jem kissed her again, and he could feel her gasp as she slid back down onto him. She rolled her hips into him this time, more of a rocking motion. She laced their fingers together again, pressing him down. Jem could have easily overpowered her, but there was no question who was in control and it wasn’t him. She pulled back from kissing him so she could rock a little faster. Her movements were still achingly slow, but Jem let himself focus on the details that were beginning to blur. The sun had risen more, so when Tessa sat up further, their fingers still laced together, she was cast in brilliant gold. Her mouth was open slightly, her hair a mess, her lips swollen, her chest flushed. She held onto his hands, using him for leverage as he slid impossibly deeper into her. 

“James,” she moaned. He leaned up and kissed her neck, her breasts, her cheek, anywhere he could reach. He wrapped his arms around her waist as he pulled her closer. 

The edges of his vision were blurring. For a moment, he thought he saw a figure in the distance, but then Tessa pulled on his hair and rolled her hips, and all Jem could focus on was her. “Tess,” he groaned. He could feel his orgasm rising, and he rocked with her. He was so close. He reached between them, getting his fingers in the right place and rubbing hard. Tessa cried out and she crested through another orgasm. The muscles deep instead her shuddered around him, pulling him into his orgasm. He thrust deep inside her as he rode the wave. 

They stayed tangled together for a moment, catching their breaths. Tessa kissed his neck and held him close. When he pulled out of her, they were both sticky and dripping from the mess they had made. “Fuck,” Tessa said, which made Jem laugh. He still hadn’t caught his breath yet, so he pressed his face into the crook of her neck and nuzzled. 

“Better than your dream?” he asked. 

She pulled back and looked at him. “I wish Will was here,” she said. 

“Me, too,” he answered and kissed her. “Always.”

Tessa kissed him back softly. “Our Will,” she murmured. Jem only held her closer as the breeze picked up again, carrying with it the smell of lavender and lilies. 

Weeks later, after they had finished decorating and unpacking their things into their new home, Jem found Tessa in the bathroom, holding a little stick with two pink lines on it. He picked her up and span her around, watching her smile grow. Out of his view, a figure stood in the hallway, watching Jem place his hand on Tessa’s stomach, watching Tessa smile up at Jem.  _ Always and forever,  _ Will thought. He could not be happier to see the two people he loved most in the world filled with so much joy. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is officially my longest piece of smut that I have written. Let me know what you thought of it! :)
> 
> Also, if anyone has an interest, lilies symbolize humility and devotion while lavender is purity and devotion.


End file.
